


The Title You Carry, The Mask You Wear

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-14 05:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10529787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: Sara has been keeping secrets from Scott. Like who she is now, and what happened to who she used to be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My name is Iz and I am fascinated at how much Ryder is forced to change over the course of the game and the ramifications of a simple team member with responsibilities they've known before being thrust into a position as savor to an entire group of people.

She wears long sleeves and makeup whenever she goes to visit Scott.

Sara knows it isn’t healthy, to keep lying to her brother. He’s awake now and stable; secret keeping for his own health isn’t an excuse she can use anymore. The only reason to lie to her brother now is purely out of self interest, both to avoid the conversation she knows she will have to endure and the look on Scott’s face when he realizes exactly how much has happened while he was sleeping.

Before Sara came to Andromeda, she had exactly one scar, a long faded burn mark on her cheek from barely dodged pulse fire. Now she has so many she doesn’t even know where to start. A long knife mark on her right forearm from wrestling a knife out of a settler’s hands. Faded burn scars on both of her hands from when a console exploded. Small tiny cuts on her back from where she landed on the ground of Habitat Seven and struggled to breath.

A sharp cut across her nose, barely healed, from where a blade missed puncturing her skull by inches.

Most people don’t comment on her scars; everyone he has their own marks from the journey. But most people didn’t know her before Andromeda, before Pathfinder. Only one knows what she looked like when  before she stepped into that cryo pod and made a wisecrack about oversleeping.

Sara has told her brother plenty of horrible truths over the last week. Somehow, she can’t tell him the one that should matter the most; how little she resembles the sister he used to know. And so she wears long sleeves to hide the battle scars. Cakes her face in makeup to hide close calls Scott will only have nightmares about.

He’ll find out eventually, he’s not dumb, Sara knows that. But she’s determined to keep it up until he forces her to come clean. Scott sees her as his twin sister, a girl who enjoyed dancing in the dark of night, who fiddled with every piece of tech she could get her hands on until she could make them dance too. He does not know the Pathfinder, the woman who has no time for dancing now, who rarely gets a full night’s sleep, who knows that if the Nexus was the one forced to make a choice between her and her father, she would be in a grave long ago.  

“He’s going to be furious when he finds out,” Vetra tells her when she finds Sara checking her makeup before she gets off the Tempest. Her tone holds no judgement: out of everyone on the Tempest, she’s one of the people who knows perfectly what kind of situation Sara is in. Sara closes the concealer she’s holding and tucks it in her back pocket. She’s almost out and Vetra’s contraband contacts will only last for so long. How long is still up in the air.

“Yep,” Sara says. “It’s not like I have a choice.” Vetra tilts her head and Sara shrugs. “He sees these scars, we’re going to find him hiding out on the deck the next time we leave. I can’t have that yet. Not with his health.”

She’s not wrong. Scott already hates sitting on the sidelines; he won’t be placated if he knows his sister is off getting beat to all hell while he’s on bed rest. Sara knows he’ll join the crew eventually; she already has the request for his presence on her ship ready. She’d just prefer he’s healthy before he thinks about picking up a gun.

“Well, when he finds out let me know,” Vetra says. “I can hide you while he throws a fit.”

“I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

She’s in the Hyperion an hour later. Scott is helping with basic cryo bay jobs now, though nothing that allows heavy lifting. She can tell he’s twitchy when she sees him. Scott always messes with his biotics when he’s board. The fact his clipboard is hovering instead of behind held tells her more than enough.

“Scott!” She says and before her brother turns to her, she considers telling him the truth. Rolling up her sleeves and admitting that she she has walked through hell and brought back marks to tell the tale. That she is no longer the sister he once knew.

Then she sees Scott smile. The smile that reminds her so much of her father. The same smile of the man that let himself die in an attempt to save her.

Not again. Never again, if Sara can help it.

“Sara!”

Sara smiles. The makeup feels thick over the scar on her nose.

She doesn’t care.


End file.
